


Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart

by Cruel_Irony



Series: HappyJarryHolidays [2]
Category: Hollyoaks
Genre: Angst, Christmas, M/M, Tumblr Prompt, happyjarryholidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 22:37:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16962786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cruel_Irony/pseuds/Cruel_Irony
Summary: For HappyJarryHolidays Prompt "Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart"James and Harry reflect on past Christmases.





	Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart

Harry can’t stop thinking about the kiss and the glorious night he spent with James. Despite the hideous Christmas jumper having far from aphrodisiac properties, they were both consumed with ecstasy and lust. It was, in Harry’s opinion, the greatest sex he has ever had. James worshipped his body, made him feel so loved even through the bruises that still painted his skin. He, himself, had made sure to return the favour to James, to show him that the past didn’t matter. It was like a door opening. If he played this right it could be the start of something beautiful.

But he went and ruined it. He got scared, of rejection - from James and his family and Ste - and of the unknown, and he backed out. He put up his walls and asked for fifty quid. As if that wonderful night was worth a few measly pounds. It was priceless. The look on James’ face, the hope that Harry so cruelly crushed like glass under his shoe, broke Harry’s heart.

Then came the arrangement. Both of them knew it was the only way to keep Harry off the streets, and yet it killed Harry to see the money exchange hands and to follow man that wasn’t James in to the bedroom and let him use his body while James waited outside. Between bouts of men paying for his body, Harry could push away the awkwardness of their new working relationship and embrace a comfortable routine. Getting take away and watching Christmas movies together well after the 25th and talking away the stresses of James’ day job, that was their norm.

Harry would take whatever he could get from James, because any fragment of affection warmed his heart and made his cheeks flush and his stomach flip. It was a bittersweet relationship that ended too soon with a stint in prison. A stint that put an unmistakable ache deep in Harry’s chest. Because, unbeknownst to James, the man held Harry’s heart in his hands, and without James, Harry would always be half of a whole.

*

With a grunt of annoyance, James switches off the radio with more violence than is probably necessary. But he can’t help it, that song just cuts too deep. That shows him not to venture away from his classical music stations into pop music. Whoever wrote that song was a sadist. ‘Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart’.

All it does it carve a deeper hole in James’ own heart, which, he notes with a scoff, is in the hands of someone else. The song rings truer than he wants it to; he gave Harry everything on a plate, his heart included, and it was thrown aside like nothing. In fact, he was asked to pay for the privilege of having his heart broken.

This year, unlike the song, he won’t be giving his heart to anyone. Though Harry could still lay claim. Why did he not stick to his rules? He never fell in love; he didn’t do romance; he never got involved in pesky relationships. Yet he had broken each and every one of them for Harry.

Harry who isn’t even here this Christmas. After marrying someone else he has skipped town, leaving two broken hearts in the village. Through the doubts and worries about what Harry is doing right now to survive the cold winter months, James is glad that temptation is far away, and that a repeat of last year is impossible.

 

That’s what he thought, until a clandestine reunion outside the flat. When an angelic Harry beams up at him and professes his intentions to win James back — whatever the cost.


End file.
